Circle
Roots’ logo is a circle rather than a square. Christians have been using circles in their symbolism for nearly 2,000 years. Circles have communicated many things, from God’s never-ending love and being, to the kind of community we seek to be—one that invites others in. God’s love encircles us all.
The Three-leaved Plant
Inside the circle, the top half is a three-leaved plant. Some see a flower. The three-leaved plant points to our faith in the God who is revealed in and by Messiah Jesus. Jesus reveals God as “Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,” the Trinity. God is a community of loving persons in relationship, co-eternal, co-equal. The Trinity shows us that love is relational and self-giving. Each person of the Trinity gives themselves to the others. The Son is loved and sent by the Father, and the Holy Spirit is the love the Father and Son share. The Holy Spirit is sent by the Father and Son and dwells in and among Jesus’s followers. God is love and believers are caught up in that love through faith.
The three-leaved plant also communicates that we’re on a mission to bear fruit. Our love for one another overflows in loving service and mission to our neighbors. We want to see God’s Kingdom grow in St. Paul and the world.
Cross
At the center of the logo are two intersecting lines that form a cross. This communicates that living out the cross-shaped love of Jesus is at the center of our life as a church. Jesus demonstrated the self-giving love of the Trinity throughout his life. But the supreme demonstration of that love was in his self-sacrificial death. Jesus laid down his life for those he loved, and called his disciples to live out that kind of love for others—cruciform love.
Roots
Below the plant are the lines which symbolize roots, our namesake. This communicates that we want to be rooted in the love of Christ. That is why our seed scripture is Ephesians 3.14-21:
For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name. I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.
Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.
The roots also symbolize our “theology of place.” We want to be rooted in the community, connected with our neighbors, sharing in their destiny, and seeking the shalom of the city.